Perceived Safety on the Beltway

Overall Assessment

A few members of
the first group said they were apprehensive about driving on the Beltway
but none felt it was so dangerous that they would not drive it. One member
of the group volunteered that it is no worse than similar kinds of interstate
highways around other major cities. He said that the Beltway around Baltimore,
for example, is no better. In agreement that the Capital Beltway problems
are no worse than problems on urban interstates all over the country,
another participant spontaneously referred to the current enforcement
campaign on aggressive driving. He said that he thinks there are more
drivers like that every year and that it is a nationwide problem, not
one that is confined to the Capital area.

Group 2 thought the
Beltway is fairly hazardous. When the subject was raised by the moderator,
one participant after another recited something they personally felt to
be dangerous about the road. One of the women in the group said she does
not know whether it is the road or the drivers that make her feel threatened.
However, none of the members of this group ever had a crash on the Beltway.
One woman said her husband did. The car in front of him crashed into another
and then somebody hit him. It was clearly a congestion related crash.
The same woman also talked about a near miss in which her car was forced
to the shoulder by a truck changing lanes. Three members of the group
took the position that the Beltway was not especially dangerous compared
to other urban interstates they have driven.

Reaction was mixed
when Group 3 was asked how safe they think they are on the Beltway. The
first to answer said he did not think there was anything inherently dangerous
about the road but he sees a lot of unsafe driving on it. He says he likes
to drive it at 65 or 70 and a lot of cars, weaving from lane to lane and
cutting other drivers off, pass him like he was standing still. Several
others agreed, one adding that it is even worse at night when he usually
travels the Beltway than it is during the day. One of the women said that
it is very dangerous in bad weather when the aggressive drivers with 4-wheel
drive vehicles act like they could stop on a dime. One member of Group
3 felt safer on the perimeter interstate around Atlanta than the Capital
Beltway. He believes that it has been expanded more to keep up with the
increasing traffic volume and has been better maintained.

When Group 4 (the
first aggressive driver group) was asked how safe they felt on the Beltway,
the initial response was "quite" safe and the body language
of this group seemed to indicate that most of them agreed. However, one
woman said that it is pretty hazardous during rush hours and tries to
avoid using it during those times. Several other group members also talked
about dangerous driving and design hazards that made them somewhat apprehensive
about the Beltway. One of the moderately aggressive women said she does
not believe the Beltway is any more dangerous than a lot of other highways
in the area, I-395 for example. She continued that it is rush hour that
is dangerous, not the Beltway itself. Another woman said that one of the
things that makes it less safe than it could be are people who "drive
scared" when they are on it.

Asked how the Beltway
compares in safety with other interstates they drive, most members of
Group 4 responded that there was not a lot of difference. One said that
I-66, west of the Beltway is more dangerous to drive on than the Beltway
itself because it is even more congested. Only one person in the group
experienced a crash on the Beltway. He was stopped at the end of a ramp
leading into University Avenue which has no merge lane. The car behind
him was watching traffic on University and assumed he pulled out when
there was a small break in the traffic, hitting him in the rear end.

Members of Group
5 (the group with the greatest tendency toward aggressive driving) were
generally less concerned about the Beltway's safety than the other groups.
The first member of Group 5 to speak about safety on the Beltway said
that he thinks he is a bit safer on it than some other interstates because
the congestion keeps the speeds down so that people rarely get killed
when they crash. However, a second person said there are sections of the
Beltway that are not very safe and mentioned the curves near the Mormon
Temple. Next, someone talked about the danger of drivers who are not familiar
with the Beltway.

Truck drivers expressed
mixed opinions about safety on the Beltway. The Skippy's drivers said
that the road gets less safe every day but they think it is caused by
congestion, not by a change in the roadway or a change in driving behavior.
Some North American Van Lines drivers also think it is getting more dangerous
but at least one of them thinks it is less dangerous than city streets
when driving a big rig. The Roadway Express drivers do not think the road
is particularly dangerous but they see a lot of dangerous driving on it.
Some of the drivers at North American believe that the Beltway is somewhat
more hazardous to drive than other interstate highways they have driven.
However, one driver said that the interstate around Atlanta may be worse.
He said, however, that the drivers are more aggressive on the Capital
Beltway.

Specific Hazards

One member of Group
1 said the major thing that makes the Beltway more hazardous than other
urban interstates is the volume of interstate truck traffic on it. He
would like to see a bypass that would take the I-95 through truck traffic
off the Beltway. One of the women in this group remarked that trucks are
frightening because they are so big and that it is hard to see around
them. (This from the young female college student who says that trucks
are about the only thing she worries about on the Beltway.)

Group 1 turned to
unsafe driving behavior early in the discussion. One woman said that it
is frightening to look in your mirror and see someone closing rapidly
knowing that there is no way they can slow down enough to avoid hitting
your car. They usually cut someone off to get into an adjacent lane and
then cut back in front. Someone remarked that this is aggressive driving
and added that it also occurs in merge lanes where this kind of driver
has no regard for the hazards he is causing and just expects other drivers
to keep out of the way. Another participant expressed annoyance that these
drivers never merge until the last possible second. If a lane closes out,
they often continue in it a mile past the warning sign because it is moving
faster. Then they expect people who merged earlier to yield when they
finally change lanes.

Although the current
law enforcement campaign against aggressive driving was mentioned spontaneously
in all groups, it came up earliest in Group 5 (the most aggressive group)
when they were discussing their perceptions of the road's safety. The
man who mentioned it said he thought that the number of drivers who cut
other drivers off is increasing, not only on the Beltway but all over
the country.

Inattention came
up as a Beltway hazard in Group 1. A self professed aggressive driver
in this group said it drives him crazy when people drive 55 and pay no
attention to traffic behind them, cutting in front of traffic that is
moving faster without ever looking in their mirrors. The group chimed
in with other examples of inattention, including reading newspapers while
driving and talking on the phone.

Short exit ramps
were mentioned as a hazard by one of the members of Group 3. He says that
eight cars waiting to get onto Georgia Avenue can back cars up onto the
Beltway. One of the women in Group 3 said she thinks there are several
other design faults that are hazardous. She referred specifically to exits
with no merge lanes onto local streets (Georgia Avenue is one of them),
left hand entrances that merge into the fast lane, and places where several
lanes of traffic must be crossed in a short distance in order to exit.
One of the young aggressive males in Group 4 said that he thinks the curves
in the area of the Mormon Temple are fairly dangerous. He said that traffic
moves entirely too fast in that section. One of the particular complaints
in Group 2 was lane drops. Another was left lane exits.

A Group 3 participant
pointed out that one of the hazards of the Beltway that is different from
other places is that there are so many out-of-town drivers, not only people
from other parts of the country, but a lot of drivers from other cultures.

Trucks were mentioned
by a member of Group 2 as making the roadway dangerous. One of the women
in Group 5 also complained about truck drivers. She remarked that some
of the most aggressive drivers she has seen are truck drivers who just
bull their way through traffic, intimidating everyone else on the road.
She also mentioned the frequency of truck roll-overs on Beltway exits,
which she said she reads about every day. It bothers her primarily because
it backs up traffic.

The hazards mentioned
by commercial drivers are very close to the same as those mentioned by
drivers of passenger vehicles. Aggressive drivers were mentioned in all
three commercial driver groups as one of the Beltway hazards. One said,
"They are just out there, hammer down, and act as if they do not
even see you." Another trucker said that even non-aggressive motorists
act as though they own the road and that trucks have no right to be on
the road.

One of the North
American drivers, an older man, said that he thinks the prevailing speeds
are faster now than they were a few years ago. Traffic is moving at 65
to 70 miles per hour these days and that is faster than he is comfortable
driving. Asked if truckers were partly to blame for the increased speed,
he responded that he thought they were, especially drivers of dump truck
and "roll off" trucks who get paid by the load. They want to
move as many loads as they can so they have an incentive to push the limits.
Later on in the discussion, however, another North American driver said
that he did not think speed was a particular problem on the Beltway. He
said that there is not much speeding going on during rush hours because
traffic is almost stopped. Even when traffic is light, he says most people
are driving 65 or 70, which is over the speed limit, but not dangerous.

Inattention also
was mentioned by all three groups of truck drivers. They said they often
saw motorists reading maps while driving on the Beltway and also people
talking on cellular phones. The dump truck drivers said weather is a big
factor that affects the safety of the Beltway. When it is raining or snowing,
the road gets very congested and it is hard to see. "Rubbernecking"
was identified as a safety factor on its own.